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Rules established by religious denominations allowing women to be ordained as ministers -- or prohibiting it -- have little to do with the roles women actually play in the church, according to a new book by a sociologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Policies on ordaining women are chiefly symbolic, public gestures, derived from the denomination's positions on larger social issues, such as gender equality in America, says Mark Chaves, visiting associate professor of sociology at UIC.
Chaves is the author of "Ordaining Women: Culture and Conflict in Religious Organizations" (Harvard University Press, 1997), a study of the ordination rules of more than 100 Christian denominations. He says religious denominations, like many organizations, "construct and display public identities," of which women's ordination rules are a part.
For example, Chaves says, the Methodist and Presbyterian Churches historically have wanted to be seen as socially "progressive, modern and liberal." That led both churches to permit the ordination of women relatively early -- both began doing so, coincidentally, in the same year, 1956. (This was at a time, Chaves notes, when Presbyterian seminaries were graduating about six women per year, and there was very little demand among women to become ministers.)
On the other hand, denominations such as the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod traditionally hold and promote more conservative social attitudes. Both prohibit women's ordination, largely as a symbol of their commitment to those traditional values, Chaves says.
Complicating matters is that rules often go out the window when it comes to what Chaves calls "on-the-ground congregational practice." It's an organizational phenomenon, well-known to sociologists, in which a group's "official policy often fails to correspond to actual practice," he says.
Conservative denominations that will not ordain women still rely heavily upon them, Chaves says. "The Roman Catholic Church famously does not permit female priests. However, its clergy shortage has generated an acute need for someone to do the day-to-day work of running parishes." Most of the 300 priestless Catholic parishes in the United States are "pastored" by women, usually nuns.
But more liberal denominations do not always back up their rhetoric with action, either, Chaves notes. In 1853 the Congregationalists became the first American denomination to fully ordain women. "But despite this early formal openness, women did not ever serve as pastors of Congregational churches in substantial numbers and when they did serve it was in the smallest congregations for the lowest pay."
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